Ciudad Blanca(the white city)
The legend of the pre-Columbian city commonly known as "Ciudad Blanca" or
White City is very old. The ruins of this city reportedly exist near large
deposits of white sand, from which it derived its name.
This capital city of the kingdom of Tlapalan, also known as "The ancient
place where the aurora originates", is mentioned in Toltec and Mayan texts
as most probably existing in northeastern Honduras in what is today known as
La Mosquitia.
According to these ancient writings, Ciudad Blanca is the origin of the
human deity called Quetzalcoatl by the Toltecs and Kukulkan by the Mayas and
revered for having bestowed wisdom and knowledge on these cultures. This
man-god and his disciples were said to have come from a race of
white-skinned people. Who knows, maybe they were survivors of the lost
continent of Atlantis or their descendants or ancient European explorers
such as the Vikings.
In 1544 Cristobal Pedraza, Bishop of Honduras and protector of the Indians,
wrote an account of his expedition east of Trujillo and sent it to the King
of Spain. The bishop communicated that from a mountaintop vantage point he
observed large Indian settlements in the flat lands of the Sico and Black
river basins. His native guides said that east of the San Pablo Sierra
existed a land called Veragua whose main city had skilled goldsmiths who
cast gold artifacts, including gold plates from which the lords and nobles
of this land ate. This account seems to initiate the legend of a mysterious
lost city filled with treasure.
In 1939, U.S. explorer Theodore Morde claimed to have found the ruins of the
lost city, where he saw the remains of a temple dedicated to a monkey god.
During a five-month expedition for the American Indian Museum of the Heye
Foundation of New York, his expedition cut through dense vegetation and
navigated miles of waterways in dugout canoes in this vast uncharted land.
Near their final destination was a waterfall and rapids, with pure white
sand along its course. These explorers finally arrived at a site that they
later called the Lost City of the Monkey God. The ruins were walled and
covered a large area with remains of large buildings, so it once must of had
a population of thousands.
A monkey appears to move across a bridge (or branch of life) from left to
right in this petroglyph at a site in the Mosquitia called Wapulbansirpi
(Small Written Stone). According to one theory, the curved lines to the left
could represent the beginning of the world, while those to the right the end
of the world. It could be that the monkey is entering the mythical Lost City
of the Monkey God, also known as the Ciudad Blanca or White City. (Photo by
Ricardo Madrid.)
Two large stone columns with carved monkey effigies marked the long paved
access to the stairway of the main temple, according to Morde. This stairway
was flanked by solid stone banisters, on the left one there was the image of
a spider, while on the right there was the carved image of a crocodile. On
top of the pyramid shaped building there was a huge carved statue of the
Monkey God with an altar for sacrifices before it.
Theodore Morde kept the exact location a secret to keep looters at bay, but
published The City of the Monkey God six years later in English and Spanish.
This publication described the ruins he found and also compared the
pre-Columbian American Monkey God with Hanuman, the Monkey God of India.
These are the only two Monkey God cults known to man.
Morde was a serious explorer with many discoveries to his credit. He
promised he would return to study and restore these ruins. However, this
would require much money which the Heye Foundation could not provide. Morde
went to London to get financial backing for his expedition. To get this
sponsorship, he had to provide certain details of the location and show
proof, such as artifacts.
One day, when he walked toward the well known institution that would sponsor
his expedition, Morde was run over and killed by an automobile. Pure
coincidence? His friends didn't think so. They speculated that those who now
had some of the information were implicated. However, without Morde's Pech
Indian guides finding the exact location of the ruins in La Mosquitia, which
is rated as one of the most impenetrable places on earth, the British
institution's expeditions that followed failed to reach their objective.
D.H. Williams, an engineer from New Orleans, who had worked on the
construction of the Lake Yojoa highway around the 1940s, reportedly visited
the ruins twice. The first time he was looking for petroleum in the
Mosquitia when his small plane had engine problems and he made an emergency
landing near the ruins. Later, he went back and filmed the ruins that were
exactly as Morde described them. Williams showed this film only to people he
could trust because he said he was afraid that looters would destroy these
important ruins.
In the near future the "Ciudad Blanca" just may be discovered. History has
shown that legends and myths cannot be just dismissed as pure nonsense. The
"mythical" Greek city of Troy was discovered by Schliemann in 1870, while
the legendary Inca lost city of Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham
in 1911. As in the proceeding two examples, the majority of the public was
skeptical as it is today concerning the existence of the lost White City.
I have just finished a fictional book about the search for the White City.If
you would like more details please come by my website.
Thanks Daryl Friesen Spindle Explorations www.bc-alter.net/dfriesen
